Putting down roots

I'm happy to say, after 4 full days of looking for the perfect house, we've found it! We put an offer in on a great 4 bed/2 bath brick ranch-style home last night, and just barely got it signed as there was another offer on the table for the same house! So, it's ours, as long as both the VA and other home inspection goes well, which we fully expect them to. We're so excited - we think it's going to be a wonderful home for our little family.

The front of our soon-to-be home (obviously the basketball hoop and truck won't convey!)

The way it's decorated currently is a wee bit quirky, but we were really able to see it with our things inside and our own little touches added to it, and we think it's going to be great. It has so much charm, and really cool touches and amenities that we weren't expecting to get in a home, and definitely wouldn't have if we'd bought a new home like we were thinking we might. Really the only things we'll have to do are decorative, like some painting to fit our colors better (or to get rid of wallpaper in bath #2), and maybe changing out the bathroom faucets, etc. Otherwise, the house has a privacy fenced backyard with great landscaping, a 14x20 screened in porch with a 10x10 patio area just outside of the porch, an extra bedroom for guests, an office and formal dining area, tons of countertop and cabinet space in the kitchen with a beautiful terracotta colored backsplash with added aged copper light plates and an island with a huge skylight above, a jetted garden tub in the master "glamour bath," tile and hardwood laminate throughout the entire house, and with 2,224 sq ft we'll have plenty of room to grow over the years! The neighborhood is the very desirable Park Meadow subdivision in the heart of Madison (which is like a suburb of Huntsville), zoned for excellent schools and it's only 6.2 miles from Collin's office - and all for a really good price! God has truly blessed us in our efforts to find a great house to make our family a home. We should be closing on July 26th, which is four weeks from today (barring no delays), and we plan to move in that afternoon.

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If you're interested in taking a virtual tour of our soon-to-be house, you can follow this link: http://www.visualtour.com/shownp.asp?t=1551246&prt=61. I'm not sure how long this link will be active, now that there's an accepted offer on the table, but it should at least be viewable through this weekend, if not for another week or so. We hope all of you will come visit and see us in our new home for yourselves - our doors are always open to friends and loved ones!

We're Here!

We arrived in Huntsville on Saturday afternoon after a couple days drive and an absolutely crazy two weeks of packing, loading everything into our PODS, and getting out of our rental house in San Antonio. We're getting settled into our furnished apartment that we'll be renting for the next month or so while we're house hunting. We had a chance to drive around a bit today. We went to the mall on the northside of town to get some new brown dress shoes for Collin (no more issued uniforms for us!), and went grocery shopping at the nearest Super Walmart on the southeast part of town, and did a bit of checking out everything in between. It's still really strange to be driving around another city and trying to look at it as home now, but hey... we've done it before in the military, so this should be a somewhat familiar experience of learning a new city, and all that comes with it.

Collin starts his first day of work with L3 tomorrow. He actually says he's feeling pretty confident about it all, and isn't feeling much in the way of nerves, but we'll still appreciate any prayers you want to send up for him! I'm not quite sure how I'll adjust to having him at work all day again - I've been spoiled in having him home all day, every day (mostly) for the last 6 months. I'll be sure to update again soon and let you know how his first day or two went.

This week for me will involve a lot of driving around trying to get my bearings, mixed with some errand running and a bit of house hunting on my own with our realtor and the kids. There's also a pool and playground in our apartment complex that I'd like to take the kids to soon (once Moira can swim after her ear surgery), since they've had to put up with Mommy & Daddy being very busy during the packing and moving stage the last two weeks. I've also seen a walking trail just behind our building that leads into the wooded foothills that our complex backs up against, and I thought that might make a fun adventure for Moira, Ian and Cailin with me.

All in all, we're happy to be here and starting a new chapter in our lives. The hardest thing for us about leaving San Antonio, is all of the family we'll be missing so much again. Here are just a couple of pictures of our last two weeks home.

Grammy & Papa Judisch with all 10 of their grandchildren!

(Top: Papa, Carson, Valie & Grammy; Bottom: Avery holding Cambria, Ian, Aidan, Moira, Evelyn and Madeline holding Lillian)

So many cousin's enjoying Valie's 3rd birthday party together

Grammy & Grandpa Wilhite at the San Antonio Rainforest Cafe with Moira & Ian

Our little clan at the Riverwalk, one last time

The news you've all been waiting to hear...

WE HAVE A JOB!!!

Praise God! Collin accepted a position with L3 Communications today as a BMD (Ballistic Missile Defense) Test Engineer in Huntsville, Alabama. Unfortunately, we'll have to pack up and leave family behind again - but the job, schedule and pay are great, and Huntsville is actually a really neat city, so we're feeling very blessed about it all! He actually had two job offers to choose from this week, and we're so thankful to God for his provision. Now, we have to get ourselves packed up and moved all the way to Alabama in two weeks, as they want Collin to start on June 23rd. Whew! Please pray that the transition will go smoothly for our family, and especially little Moira after her recent ENT surgery.

Thank you all for all of your friendship, loving support, and most of all prayers for us. They've been so helpful and encouraging during this whole time of uncertainty. It just goes to show that God is the Great Provider, and is ever faithful - and we give all the glory to God!

"Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess,

for He who promised is faithful." -- Hebrews 10:23

Our Trip in Pictures (click on the pictures)

As I had forseen, we were enjoying ourselves way too much to post anymore while on the trip. We arrived back home late last night though, and I have tons of pictures to share! Fortunately, I learned a wonderful way of sharing our photo albums through picasa (thanks Erica and Dara!) instead of posting them all here, so simply click on the pictures below and it'll show you a full album of them all!

Reuniting with dear friends

Abel's Baptism

Dinner at Fudpucker's with the Treats

The only Jungle-themed McDonald's in the world

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This trip was such a blessing for us all - reuniting with our dear friends after so long and witnessing the baptism of such a precious little guy meant so much to us. We thank God, with hearts full of joy, for this special time and the bonds that it strengthened even more between us.

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"I thank my God upon every rememberance of you..."

Okaloosa Island

We spent a few hours at the Eglin AFB beach on Okaloosa Island today and plan to head back to Destin for dinner with the Treats before the day is over, but I thought I'd post some pictures of our family enjoying the beach.

Huntsville, Alabama

We arrived in Huntsville on Wednesday afternoon, just in time to get our stuff in the hotel and settle a little bit before Collin was off to meet with one of the L3 guys to get spun up for the interview on Thursday morning. His meeting went well, and they gave him some good information for the interview the following morning. We did find out that there are 18 people interviewing for 4 positions, so that's about a bit worse than a 1 in 4 chance of getting the job. Collin said the interview went well though, and the interviewers seemed to like him, so that's good. He feels he did his best, and we'll just have to see what happens - the rest is up to God. We're hoping to hear the results of the interview in about 2 weeks, so please continue to pray.

Huntsville turned out to be a really neat city, and we really enjoyed the opportunity to explore a bit. It was nestled in the foothills of the mountains, in the Tennessee valley and had beautiful scenery as well as a lot of neat things to offer. The Marshall Space Center, where Space Camp is located, was quite a spectacle from the road, and even though we didn't get the chance to spend any time there, we definitely hope to if we end up in Huntsville! There was also a really neat outdoor shopping area called Bridge Street Town Centre (kinda like La Cantera, for those of you familiar with San Antonio) and they had beautiful buildings with shopping, a huge movie theatre, a carousel and water fountain play-scape for the kids, and a man-made lake with paddle boat rentals and gondola rides! All in all, Huntsville looks like it would be a good place to live, if that's where the Lord sends us.

We got in to Niceville, FL last night and had a wonderful time catching up with Stephen and Dara! We've got plans to take the kids to the beach today, so I should have some more pictures of the Florida half of our trip soon.

On the road... again

So we're off this morning for our week long trip to Alabama and Florida. Collin has his final interview with L3 Communications in Huntsville, AL on Thursday at 8:30 am - please say a prayer for him - we're leaving in a few minutes and will be staying in Hattiesburg, Mississippi tonight. We plan to arrive in Huntsville on Wednesday afternoon and do a little exploring of the area. Collin will have his interview on Thursday morning, and then we'll be leaving for Niceville, FL to visit our dear friends Stephen & Dara, and Kevin & Erica, who will also be visiting then. We'll be there until Monday morning the 2nd, when we'll head back home and arrive back in San Antonio late that night. (We'll have our cell phones with us, should anyone need to reach us.) Please say a prayer for our travels, and for this job opportunity! I'll try to update here on our trip as we're on the road, but I'll definitely have a post once we're back if I'm just enjoying myself way too much!